Category Archives: Sci-fi

Into the Jungle: The Story of John McTiernan’s Predator

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Back in his action heyday, director John McTiernan was something of an artiste.

For many, he is probably most remembered for genre high point Die Hard, but a year earlier he gave us another action vehicle with a crowd-pleasing twist. A genre crossover which lured us into the safety of Hollywood’s most dependable biceps, Predator would plunge us into a jungle of stifling uncertainty, adopting the form of a stalk-and-slash horror and keeping us very much in the dark […]

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Godzilla (1985)

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In 1954, Toho Studios released Gojira.

Directed by Ishiro Honda, the film explores the dangers of nuclear weaponry through the unstoppable force that is Godzilla: a giant, prehistoric creature who rampaged across Tokyo before succumbing to a device as dangerous to humanity as he is. Two years later, the movie was released in America, re-edited and re-titled Godzilla: King of the Monsters, where it also proved a success. Godzilla was popular in America […]

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Hologram Man (1995)

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If Hologram Man had been made in the early 1980’s, it may have been deemed futuristic.

Unfortunately it was made in 1995, a whole year after the original PlayStation was released, and the special effects on show are closer to Sega’s short-lived Mega-CD. This movie is about as high-tech as an episode of Quantum Leap. You know the kind of production, those where four-inch video phones and bogus Virtual Reality constitute the furthest reaches of technological advancement […]

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Robocop 3 (1993)

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Back in 1987, actor Peter Weller worked miracles to help create one of science fiction’s best-loved characters.

This may seem like something of an overstatement considering he spent the majority of Robocop hidden behind bulky armour, but believe me, once you see another actor attempting to pull off the role of OCP’s most noble creation, you tend acquire an increased appreciation for Weller’s most definitive mainstream performance […]

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Rise of the Machine: The Genesis of James Cameron’s The Terminator

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Conan the Barbarian may have catapulted Arnold Schwarzenegger onto the Hollywood mainstream, but it was James Cameron’s sci-fi classic The Terminator that would make him a household name.

Ironically, Arnie initially read for the part of Kyle Reese, and it took some persuasion from James Cameron to convince him that the role of the T-800 was better suited. Arnie was still riding high after box office success as the heroic Conan, so it was something of a risk for Cameron to challenge his […]

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The Sweetest Cherry: Return of the Jedi and the Decline of Star Wars

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After the swashbuckling adventure of A New Hope and the dark turn taken with The Empire Strikes Back, there was feverish anticipation to see where the ‘Star Wars’ universe would go next.

Relinquishing directorial duties once again, this time to relative rookie Richard Marquand, ‘Return of the Jedi’ remains a bit of an oddity. It’s cute, fun, silly, adventurous, but marks the beginning of the decline of ‘Star Wars’ under George Lucas […]

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